My Everything
by Phoenix II
Summary: Is it still a relationship if one of the participants doesn’t know it’s a relationship?  Tryan slash.


**My Everything**

**Disclaimer: I own not High School Music, nor Zac, nor Lucas. I wouldn't mind borrowing Lucas though…**

**Summary: Is it still a relationship if one of the participants doesn't know it's a relationship? Tryan slash.**

**-.-**

I'm walking through East High's hallways, headed for the auditorium and Ryan Evans. After the summer at Lava Springs, both Evans twins have grown closer to the Wildcat crew. Ryan, in particular, has grown close to Chad and me, especially once Chad told me that the blonde is a pretty good baseball player. That was more than enough to warm me up towards Ryan, because baseball is one of my athletic weak points.

Since then, Ryan has become almost perfectly accepted, eccentricities and all. In fact, I'm heading to pick him up to hang out with the guys. It's the middle of basketball practice season, and no amount of persuasion could convince Ryan to join the team, even as a manager. He assured us that he's perfectly content to work on "theater stuff" while we practice, and that we just need to let him know when we're done.

Thus, I enter the auditorium that doubles two or three times a year as a theater for the Drama Department's productions. The room is dark, except for a sliver of light coming from behind one of the side curtains. The side that leads to, I know from experience, the dressing rooms. Of which Ryan has his own, which I ALSO know from experience. Using the lights from the aisle seats to guide myself to the stage, I pull out my cell phone to light the way up the stairs to the stage as I hold the handrail.

Once on stage, I continue to use my phone's glow to guide myself towards the dressing rooms, where I can hear some noises. Happy noises. Moans of pleasure, sounding like they're coming from Ryan. Mulling it over, I decide to respect the blonde's privacy and turn to go wait outside when Ryan starts speaking over his moans.

"Troy…oh, God, yes…Troy!!" I hear, and I feel my eyes bugging out as I snap the cell phone shut loudly, apparently loudly enough to be heard inside.

"Oh, shit!" I hear. "Is someone there?" Ryan asks, and I hear the other hurriedly pull up and zip his pants. "Hello?" The voice gets closer, but I remain frozen, and a rush of air notifies me that Ryan has opened the door.

"Oh, fuck…" the Evans boy breathes. "Troy…it wasn't…I didn't…did you…"

I spin around. "You…you…FUCK, Ryan!" I shout, enraged at both the fact that I appear to be the object of affection of a boy, and not just a boy, a boy I consider a close friend, as well as the fact that Ryan hasn't TOLD me this, so we could talk it over, and I could maybe let him down gently. Because I'm not like that. At the same time, he can't help but notice the color draining fast from Ryan's already-pale face.

"Troy, Troy I swear…I mean…I just…" Ryan stumbles, panicking. I'm sure as well that Ryan didn't intend me to find out like this. Or, apparently to react like this. But what's done is done, and Ryan knows he's screwed.

"I'm NOT gay!" I protest. "I _DON'T_ like you like that…and you can just stay the fuck away from me!"

"Troy…Troy come on…don't react like this, please…can't we still be friends?"

"With you wanting in my pants? Fuck no!" I exclaim, lashing out and punching the thespian in the face and running out of the hallway, out of the auditorium, and out of the school. I don't stop until I reached my truck in the parking lot, where the rest of the guys are grouped.

"Where's Ryan?" Chad asks. Bad…very bad…question, buddy…

"Not…coming…with," I wheeze, winded from all the running.

"You sure?" Zeke asks. I nod.

"Something…came…up," I lie, getting into the truck. "Jump in, let's go."

As the gang piles in, as I started the truck and put it in gear, as I start to pull out of the parking lot, Chad points out the window at a figure dressed spectacularly, with a hat once again covering his blonde hair, but the blood on his face unmistakable to me, the cause of it, as I look in my mirror.

"Isn't that Ryan?" he asks. It IS Ryan, but I want to put distance between us, as much distance as possible.

"No," I say, lying again as I depress the accelerator and tear out of the lot. "It's not."

**-.-**

I'm laying on my bed. It's three hours before bedtime. The TV's on, my stereo's on, and I have homework for three classes due tomorrow sitting on my desk awaiting my attention. I, however, have no attention to spare it. My mind is busy. Thinking, much to my chagrin and displeasure, about Ryan Evans.

I know I shouldn't have reacted like I did. I could have made the guys wait, stopped Ryan's babbling, sat him down, and talked about it. I could have gotten to the bottom of why I'm an object of attraction to BOTH of the Evans siblings. I could have tried to be a friend, throughout the ordeal, but I didn't. I didn't do any of it. I PUNCHED my friend, HURT my friend, because I didn't like something my friend did. That wasn't like me, not at all. I never act so close-minded and … mean. Ryan has to feel hurt… I contemplate calling him and apologizing for hitting him and hurting him, but as it turns out, I don't have to. My cell phone begins ringing, and I glance at the Caller ID that says "Evans Home" before answering.

"Hello?" I ask.

"_TROY BOLTON GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!_" comes the screeching voice of an angry and yet terrified Sharpay Evans.

"Sharpay? What's going on?" I ask.

"_It's Ryan, you twit! He's been sobbing in his room since he got home, with blood ALL OVER his favorite outfit, about you, and he's got a gun to his head! He says he's gonna kill himself if he doesn't see you before nine!_" What!? Ryan's going to kill himself over…me? Over one unrequited crush? That's not like Ryan, at least as far as I know the boy. He does have a flair for the dramatic though…

"I'll be there, Sharpay," I find myself promising, jumping out of bed and checking the clock to see that it is 8:20. I only have forty minutes to cross town and reach Ryan's house…should be a piece of cake.

"_Troy, if you make my brother kill himself, I swear to GOD I will make your life hell!_" Sharpay swears at me, like Ryan's already offed himself and his twin sister's swearing a vendetta against me.

"I'll be there!" I repeat. "I'm heading out right now!" I grab my keys from the front hall table and without a word to my parents, shut the cell and run for my truck.

**-.-**

I don't think it's safe to be driving this fast. But I'm in a hurry. I only have fifteen minutes before Ryan's deadline…and I don't know why that's important. Is Sharpay really that dangerous to worry about her impending vendetta against me? I mean…I thought I effectively terminated my friendship with Ryan by punching him in the face and running out on him without even giving him a chance to explain himself. I did. I said we couldn't be friends anymore. Why, of all the people he could talk to now, does he want me, not Sharpay or anyone else in his family?

I'll have my answers soon enough, I guess. I see the Evans estate just ahead. I have to run two stop signs to get to it, but no one was coming, and there was no one around, so it's alright, I guess.

Throwing the truck into park and hurriedly turning everything off, I pocket my keys and run into the house. I know where Ryan's bedroom is by heart, he'd invite the gang up all the time for movies, even if they did end up being Adam Sandler romantic comedies every other time. I miss the evil but pleading look Sharpay gives me when I reach the top of the stairs, and throw open the doors to Ryan's room. He's sitting up on his bed with a gun pressed to his stomach, wild eyed but I can tell he's been crying.

"Why did you want to see me?" I demand, in something close to the same tone of voice I was using when I confronted him. I need to stop that, I might push him over the edge. I need him to be thinking that I'm still his friend, even if I DON'T wanna fuck him silly. Which I do. Not wanna fuck him stilly, that is.

"I just wanted to explain…" Ryan says weakly.

"What's there to explain!?" I ask. "You want me, I tell you that you can't have me, and now you wanna kill yourself. Seems pretty open and shut to me!" Goddamnit…no, I'm going for friendly and caring, not cold and distant! I don't know why I'm even using that tone…

"No, not that…and you don't even have that right. Troy…" he says, getting out of his luxurious bed and walking over to the small door he said was just a small closet he used to store hats. "I wanted you to know how much you mean to me…" And then he opens the door, and instead of hats I see a small shrine to me, including pictures that HAVE to have been uncomfortable for him to take. I don't know where he was hiding that camera, or how he took shower shots of me without me noticing, but I can't help but think that's been a sort of "visual aid" to him more than once.

"Why, Ryan?" I ask, my voice finally dropping a few decibel levels. "Why does your entire family want to tie me to the bed and do naughty things to me?"

"I don't," he says, and rushes to expand as I cock an eyebrow and gesture to the shrine. "I don't wanna tie you down. That's rape, essentially, and it's not an expression of actual love. That's just sex…"

"Sex is still love…" I point out.

"But it's not _love_," Ryan persists. "It's not what I wanted you to be…"

"What did you want me to be, then?" I ask. "If not your boytoy, which runs closer to your image, what did you want me to be, Ryan?"

"I wanted you to be my everything," he whispers, looking down at the gun that he is apparently trying to make fire on its own, to just fire once and take him away from this embarrassment and…rejection.

"Your everything?"

"My soul mate, my lover, my confidant, my best friend, my closest friend, the keeper of my secrets, a father to a couple of needy kids we'd adopt, someone who wouldn't WANT to live off my inheritance, someone who would want to be there own person but at the same time be mine too…" he says. "And I looked at all the guys I knew, I swear I did, but you were the only one that I thought would be my everything…that would do all of those things with me. I should have known better," he says, sadly, heading for the open French doors to his balcony, past me.

As he draws alongside me, though, in one swift move he tucks the gun into one of his pockets, turns flush against me, wraps his arms around my neck and gives me one of the sweetest, most passionate kisses I've ever received in my life. My mind turns off to the fact that I'm being kissed by Ryan, a boy, and my hormones take over, telling me and a certain … other part of me that this is something I want, that I should let happen. And that I should do more often.

But just as I'm ready to give into that voice, that temptation, to Ryan, he pulls away and looks down again, withdrawing the gun and continuing his morose walk towards death. "The good ones are always straight," I hear him murmur to himself. "The ones you always want are always straight. You set yourself up time and again, and fall time and again, but no more!"

"Ryan?" I ask, following him towards the balcony, where he's poised by the railing.

"Go away, Troy," he says. "Even if you don't love me, if you don't wanna be my everything, I don't want you to see me go."

"Ryan? What do you mean?"

"I'm not staying here anymore. I'm leaving. Everything. All this pain, all this suffering, all this not-being-loved, all this having-no-chance. I quit. I'm tired of failing at life. I'm going to give the world one last Fuck You, and then I'm gone. And I don't want you to see. I love you too much to give you that nightmare."

"Don't. I'm not leaving, so don't." His gun arm comes around to point at me and his head follows.

"Troy, please…just leave. I can't stay here. There's nothing in this world for me."

"Don't say that, Ryan," I say, taking another step forward and having a flash of fear as he cocks the gun.

"I don't wanna hurt you, but you need to go."

"What about Sharpay, your parents? Haven't you thought about them, what they would do if you killed yourself?" I ask, holding my hands up.

"They wouldn't care…" he says. "Sharpay doesn't care about anything or anyone that's not Sharpay, and my parents wouldn't know family if it bit them in the ass."

"But she's your twin…" I say. "She cares, Ryan…she swore a vendetta on me if I let you die."

"Oh, so you're trying to talk me out of it for my _SISTER_!? God, that's even worse! You have a choice between doing something from the heart and doing something because you're afraid of Sharpay, and you do it because you're afraid of Sharpay! Maybe I should shoot you, just because you're a fucking idiot!"

"If she hadn't called me I never would've known about your deadline!" I say. "I never would have known why you felt like you felt."

"You didn't care why before," he points out, and it stings.

"I don't know why I did that," I say. "It's not like me. It's…instinct, I guess. I was going to call you and talk to you about it before Sharpay called…"

"Well, now you know. So I can die. Go away."

"I'm not going anywhere!" I say, stepping forward brazenly. "And neither are you!" I reach for the gun as Ryan spins forward to defend it, and while he's still turning and unsteady, it goes off. Seconds later I feel a punch in the gut, and I know that I've been shot, but I'm more concerned with the scene in front of me.

When he fired, already unsteady, the report of the shot knocked Ryan backwards. And he didn't have anywhere to go…but over the railing. The beginning of a scream emanates from his throat as I grasp his flailing hand as my body's trauma reaction kicks in and drops me to my knees, and then knocks me on my back, the momentum of this counterweight pulling Ryan forward as well.

"Troy!" he exclaims, picking himself up from the marble balcony. "Oh God, no this isn't right…it wasn't supposed to be you! This is all wrong, all wrong…I shot you!"

"It's all right," I tell him. "You're still alive…I redeemed myself."

"For hitting me? That's nothing, that's a drop in the bucket…I SHOT YOU!"

Sharpay, who seems to have heard the shot, runs into the room, and I can hear her voice panicking. "Ryan, what's going on!?"

"I shot Troy!" Ryan exclaims, panicky. "I didn't mean to, it just went off when he tried to take it away from me! Sharpay, call an ambulance, please!"

"You WHAT!?" the drama queen screams. "If you ruined one BIT of that perfect body, Ryan, you're DEAD!"

"See what I mean?" I ask, trying to make a joke to ease my pain. "She goes to war against anything she doesn't like…"

"Yeah…but why did you do this? You didn't have to…"

"But…I wanted to," I say. "You mean a lot to me…"

"I do?" he asks. "Like…how?"

"I dunno…I wish you hadn't stopped kissing me when you did."

"Why?"

"I was just about to kiss back."

"You…were?"

"I was," I say. "It turned me on. Can you…kiss me again?" I ask.

"You…want me to kiss you? Like for the last thing you may ever feel in your life?"

"Yes…I want you to kiss me. Please, Ryan…don't you want to know for sure?"

"Kinda…but what if you DO end up wanting to be my everything, and you die?"

"I won't…Sharpay's calling the ambulance, I'll be fine. Kiss me." And he does. And this time I don't stiffen up. Well I do, but not all over my body. Just in one centralized place. I return his kiss, dueling our tongues and pressing our lips together.

"So…you do?" he asks, as I hear sirens approaching.

"Ryan Evans, I will happily be your everything."

"I love you."

"I love you too, I think. It's still a little soon."

"That's alright. Just keep kissing me like this and I'll convince you," he says, as something else pops into my mind.

"Wait…where's the gun?"

"It fell out of my hand when I started to fall. I think it's in the pool."

"Nice." He grins, then leans down to kiss me again.

"Very."

**-.-**

I wake up in the hospital to find Ryan by my bedside, holding my hand.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey," he says.

"Y'know, I was thinking…" I say, and he looks at me interestedly.

"I love you too."

He kisses me, and all is right in the world. I have Ryan Evans for a boyfriend, I'm going to be his everything, and all will be great.

I'm so happy.

**-.-**

**Fin**

**-.-**

**Notes: Tell me what you thought? I hope this doesn't get lost in the flood…**

**Phoenix II**


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